The Turnbull government could face further weeks of scrutiny over a controversial $444 million grant to the non-profit Great Barrier Reef Foundation, with the National Audit Office considering a review.

Josh Frydenberg, the Environment and Energy Minister, said on Monday he had asked the secretary of his department to write to the auditor to request "he consider such an audit as a priority".

A clown fish on the Great Barrier Reef. The $444 million grant continues to attract attention.Credit:Jason South

“The Auditor-General has publicly stated an interest in undertaking an audit of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation Partnership which we would welcome.”

Tony Burke, Labor's environment spokesman, said it “was an extraordinary step for the secretary of the department to be sending a letter like that to the Auditor-General at the exact same time that Josh Frydenberg is standing up in Parliament saying there is no problem here".

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The letter, however, did not go far enough because it only suggested an audit of the partnership after it was set up, he said.

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"We also need to get to the bottom of how on earth the government decided that a private foundation employing six full-timers should be handed half a billion dollars in the first place," he said.

Questions continue to swirl about the amount of preparation conducted by the government before the funding was announced just before the May budget.

Anna Marsden, the Foundation's managing director, on Monday appeared to contradict Mr Frydenberg's comments a day earlier to ABC's Insiders program that there had been "extensive due diligence" on the group prior to the grant.

Asked if anyone else in the foundation was contacted, she replied: "No."

The Foundation says it also welcomes the audit "in the interests of transparency and accountability", a spokesman said.

Separate documents tabled in the Senate describe some of the activities of a steering committee meeting on May 17 between the CSIRO and the Foundation.

The expectation was that the $500 million over six years included "an expectation of 3:1 leverage" to deliver $100 million in private investment.

The Chairman's retreat attracted 50 chief executives including Larry Marshall, the head of the CSIRO, and Paul Hardisty, head of the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

It agreed the Foundation would launch a media campaign based on a message of hope, aspiration and national pride. "There is a desire for reassurance about what is being done to protect the reef to give people hope and a reason to engage," one of the documents showed.